The application and use of imaging technology falls into two categories. The first and most widely used is the generation of a set of analog signals by the image, and the treatment of these signals by analog means to generate signals compatible with the requirements of the standard television monitor so that the image may be transported and reproduced in another location or time. It is very difficult to identify and measure a particular element of the array because of the serial output organization of the information.
The second category is in applications such as infrared guidance systems with technology such as described in "CCD ANALOG ARRAY PROCESSOR" by Hoschette, Joseph, Roberts, Hanzal and Schwanebeck (0547-3578/84/0000-0228 IEEE), and similar systems which require a mathematical treatment of the information to acquire time rate of change or image enhancements such as edge detection or rate of change with respect to position. Computer based systems such as Dimension also address this category. However, these systems are on the fringe of the category in terms of performance requirements and are expensive and complex. Thus their applicability to needs such as position sensing and motion sensing for machine control of a smaller scope is limited.
Image sensing devices such as CCD imagers and vidicon tubes have been exploited primarily for applications of sensing optical images of objects and producing electrical signals which can be transmitted to a distant location, or recorded for future display. In both cases, the television monitor is the typical display tool, and the eye the intended destination. Thus most of these device types are convenient to use for video applications and require considerable effort and expense if the destination is a microprocessor computer rather than the eye, and the application machine control rather than video. For machine control applications, and for many vision orientation applications which require less speed or fewer frames per second, or for image manipuations, such as differences which allows for measurements of time rate of change, and rate of change with respect to position or if a small portion of the screen is of interest, a device such as the present invention is of significant value.